Bosnian Serbs Feel Embargo

As Food Prices Rise, Belgrade's Motives Are Questioned

October 19, 1994|By Tom Hundley, Tribune Staff Writer.

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina — At the open air vegetable market in the city's Serb-held Grbavica district, the crackle of not-so-distant small arms fire is considered normal. The price of potatoes is not.

Rada Milic, a 56-year-old woman with two sons in the army, shook her head sadly as she regarded the skimpy selection of potatoes, cabbages, onions and carrots being offered.

"Every week the prices are going up," she said. "This embargo is aimed at the ladies. What can I do if I cannot find food to feed my soldiers?"

Milic's sentiments are echoed by other women in the market who evidently are the first to feel the pinch of the Aug. 4 embargo imposed on Bosnia's Serbs by their erstwhile allies, the Serb-dominated government of Yugoslavia.

While the politicians posture and the soldiers dig deeper into their trenches, it is the women of Sarajevo who must prepare to meet another winter of shortages.

"You can see there is meat here, but ordinary people can't afford it," lamented Neveka Radovic, 55, who has a son in the army. "One kilo (2.2 pounds) costs 8 dinars (about $5), and my pension is only 42 dinars (per month). Is it possible for me to have meat?"

The women say it is useless to stock up on supplies for the winter because they don't have the cash to buy in quantity.

"You go from day to day. For now, I have potatoes and apples, but no cooking oil," Radovic said.

Many families in this Serb-held part of the city previously relied on relatives living in the rural villages, often in Serbia itself, to give them food. But now even this meager source has been cut off. By all accounts, the Belgrade government is serious about the embargo, which means that ethnic Serbs now are facing a winter of hardship akin to what the Bosnia's Muslim population has endured for the last few years.

"They let you bring in small amounts of food but only for your own needs, if you bring too much, they take it," said Milic.

Technically, humanitarian aid-food and medicine-aren't subject to the embargo and should be allowed, but border authorities say they aren't permitting individuals to bring in large supplies of food unless they have a document of authorization from the International Red Cross.

"This kind of treatment we did not expect from our brothers," Radovic complained.

As a result of the embargo imposed by Belgrade, food prices have risen at least 30 percent over the past month. Salt, necessary for preserving foods in the winter, sells for $40 a kilo; black market gasoline, which sells for $7.50 a gallon in Belgrade, costs $10 a gallon in Serb-held Bosnia.

But what has upset the Bosnian Serbs even more than the higher food prices is Belgrade's decision to sever phone links. Already isolated and ostracized by the international community, Bosnia's Serbs can't call their friends and relatives in the Serb heartland.

Diplomats from Western governments who are trying to work out a peaceful solution for the Bosnian conflict remain skeptical about the sincerity of Belgrade's blockade. They suspect that Slobodan Milosevic, the leader of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro), merely is maneuvering for relief of UN sanctions imposed on his own country.

"We still don't know what's going on," one Western diplomat admitted. "Is this a show, a masquerade done for short-term gain? Will Milosevic play the game until he gets relief, and then hold on to what he's got in Bosnia?"

But in Pale, provisional capital of the breakaway Serbian region in Bosnia, there are no doubts about the blockade's efficacy.

"The Serbs are showing the UN's so-called humanitarian observers how a real blockade works," said Pale's Foreign Minister Aleksa Buha, a sarcastic reference to the fairly porous UN embargo on goods to Yugoslavia.

The few goods now seeping into Serb-held parts of Bosnia apparently are coming from their sworn-enemies in Croatia.

"They are our enemies, but at least they are Christians," said a young Bosnia Serb soldier who was passing through the Sarajevo market, unaware of the irony of his remark.

So far, Belgrade's payoff for imposing the embrago has been a 100-day probationary easing of some of the UN sanctions. Yugoslavia has been allowed to resume sports and cultural ties with the rest of the world and to reopen Belgrade's airport to international flights.

Milosevic's ultimate political survival probably depends on ending Yugoslavia's isolation and restoring its economy, but his decision to crack down on Bosnian Serbs may reflect more than a desire to please the West.

That Milosevic views Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic as a threat and rival is no secret. With about 70 percent of Bosnia under Serb control, Milosevic may have decided that it is time to consolidate his gains and begin easing out Karadzic.